Does God exist? If only more people thought it as important an issue as Raymond Terrific does...
Andrew Nicholson: May 2008 Archives
I apologise for the delay between posts, but things have been a little hectic of late. However, I'm now back on top of my ironing (sort of!) and can sit down and write a post.
Actually, that's something of a lie - I haven't really been up to much that's exciting, just the hum-drum of the daily grind.
Indoor cricket has been fun, although my team has come up against some of the better teams of late and we've had some rather poor results. We did, however, win this week, and myself and another guy from my team stayed to make up the numbers for another game afterwards. I'm glad I did, because I bowled the best I've ever done in that game, and even got a hat-trick! Pretty pumped about that :-D
Also, my volleyball team at DSTO did rather well, finishing in 2nd place after the regular season finished. The finals start next week, so stay tuned for further developments there.
As far as work goes, I've had a bit more to do of late, but I'll probably put that in a post of its own.
We held the second ever SATUB (South Australian Twitter Underground Brigade) meetup a couple weeks back - I was a little disappointed with the turnout (we had 6 people show up, same as the first time) but the weather was poor, so hopefully we'll get more next time.
Other things on the horizon: I'll be travelling to Sydney for a few days in June, which I'm looking forward to. Will be catching up with friends, and hopefully getting to meet some of the Sydney twitterati for coffee/beer/hugs (@Alegrya, I'm looking at you ;-))
I'm also working on a new design for this blog/site in general, so things should look a bit more organised when I'm done...
Ciao, & God bless!
&y.
Last night on twitter, @cameronreilly informed the twitterverse that he was bored, and was looking for Christians to argue with. Somewhat unwisely (140 characters is a very limited debating medium), several Chrstian twitterers (including myself) took the bait; for at least half an hour, there was much vigorous to-ing and fro-ing as each side stubbornly put forward its own opinion.
Cameron's main argument was that Christianity is a violent religion, citing several verses in order to try and prove his point. He also claimed (without presenting a lot of actual evidence, preferring to state opinions as fact - but I digress) that Christianity has shown by actions done in its name to be inherently violent and intolerant.
To which I raise a few questions:
- Evolutionary theory has species pitted violently against species; each vying for survival at the expense of others. Does that sound inherently peaceful or tolerant?
- The very foundation of society and law is based on intolerance: the law outlines those actions which cannot be tolerated by the people. Why is this form of intolerance acceptable, when it is fundamentally no different to the Christian idea of sin, which God does not tolerate?
- If those who preach "tolerance über alles" are so tolerant, why don't they let Christians hold to their own beliefs? This smacks of hypocrisy to me...
Interestingly, today Cameron has said that he wants to start a podcast where he debates Christians. I'm all for that, and would probably listen to it - provided he doesn't pick straw men to argue with...
Got up to a lot of stuff over the weekend just gone, most of it good fun :-)
Saturday morning was mainly taken up with domestic duties: catching up with ironing, then spending time in the garden. It never ceases to amaze just how grass ends up where it does - and its network of roots is nothing short of insidious. Big nuisance when it starts growing through mulch. Grr.
After that, I took a drive through the beautiful Adelaide hills, up to Gumeracha. It was a stunningly beautiful trip - although I was frustrated at the lack of places to pull over on the road. There were many occasions when I would have loved to stop and take a snap, only to be foiled by the absence of a shoulder or verge of any sort. Most unfortunate.
I did, however, get a few nice photos of the Gumeracha Medieval Fair - the reason I was headed that way in the first place. There were quite a few re-enactment groups present, providing much entertainment in the form of music, dance, food, craftsmanship, and of course, fighting!
After spending an enjoyable couple of hours watching people party like it was 1499, I drove back into the city to say farewell to one of my newer Adelaide friends, who is on her way overseas for 5 months! That ended up going a bit later than I anticipated, so I didn't get home until around 11:30PM!
After church on Sunday morning, I went down to North Adelaide, and enjoyed a Turkish coffee and delicious cupcake at Cikolatté on Melbourne St. After that, I went along to a training/info day for a friend's Ultimate Frisbee team. Throughly enjoyable, although jeans don't really make athletic endeavours easy or comfortable! Enjoyed another great church service at night, and then hung out at Najjar's for a while, chewing the fat and just idling in general. A perfect end to a great weekend.
Needless to say, after all the activity, I found being productive tough going today :-)
&.
P.S. Oh, photos from the fair, etc, can be found in my Flickr photostream.
